Beauty From Pain
by Silva Jupiter
Summary: Not everyone likes who they are. Tenten has never been the most beautiful or the most successful of the kunoichi. After years of feeling unloved, she gives up on showing her mask of hope and happiness to the world. Neji/Ten fic.


**Beauty from Pain**

**(totally the name of a Superchick song, but it suits it.)**

**Initial description:**

**Not everyone likes who they are. Tenten has never been the most beautiful or the most successful of the kunoichi. After years of feeling unloved, she gives up on showing her mask of hope and happiness to the world. Neji/Ten fic.**

**Angst/Romance – (not quite as angsty as implied, though it starts off that way. It's way more fluffy and cheesified if you ask me)**

**Rating: K+. If you think it needs to be increased then tell me, but I think this is appropriate.**

**And finally, the disclaimer:**

**I don't own Naruto.**

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Not everyone likes who they are.

It seems like a contradictory statement - if you don't like who you are, then why don't you become what you want to be? If you can't stand to stare at yourself in the mirror every morning then why don't you become that which you want so desperately to become? It can't be all that difficult to carve new paths of emotion into your personality… right?

Tenten wished she knew.

Staring into her own dull hazelnut eyes every morning, she saw nothing but the mistakes she made. She saw the way the boys stared at her in disgust upon seeing her tomboyish ways. She saw the haunted emptiness in her own eyes and the ugly gauntness of her own face. Her hair was too childish, her body too blocky and muscular to be a girl's, and she was by no means attractive – having too many scars and scrapes zig-zaging their way across her almost translucent skin. Her hands were calloused from the one thing she actually loved – her precious weapons.

Her beloved arsenal gave her the kind of love she was used to receiving her whole life – the hurtful, unrequited, type of love that cut you every time you came close enough.

A tear.

It glistened on her cheek, a small diamond on her otherwise ugly skin.

Furiously, she rubbed it off, digging her nails into her face as she choked back the rest of the tears that threatened to spill out of her eyes.

Crying was a weakness. Shinobi don't cry.

A towel was draped over her naked body. She didn't even have to lower it to know that beneath it she was just as unattractive as she was in her face.

Shinobi didn't worry about their physical appearance. They were weapons to be used for war and to accomplish tasks mere civilians couldn't. They didn't have time to worry about silly materialistic things like beauty and love.

"The most effective weapons aren't always beautiful." She said aloud, her voice scratchy and high.

That simple sentence did nothing to assuage her self hatred. Instead of being reassured, she was struck once again by her own worthlessness. She'd lost her match against Temari in less then a minute. She might be a jounin now, but that didn't mean she was by any means a great shinobi. She wasn't an "effective weapon" just as she wasn't a beauty.

When she'd been younger, she'd told herself that it didn't matter if she wasn't beautiful so long as she become the greatest shinobi to ever exist.

A strangled laugh escaped her chapped lips and her eyes widened at the sound, her hand unconsciously coming up to cover her mouth.

Now she was neither. Not beautiful, not worth anything as a shinobi, and not worth anything to anyone.

Shinobi didn't love. They didn't care about that ridiculous and senseless emotion.

But Tenten did.

More then life herself, she wanted just one person to love her.

More then her reputation as the Weapons Mistress of Konoha (which she was certain she didn't deserve – Sakura and Ino were more skilled kunoichi then her), she wanted that unreachable emotion known as love.

How long had she been denied it?

How long had she waited for that strange happiness that was said to come from loving someone.

She'd never been loved.

An orphan since before she turned one, she'd never known the love of a parent.

Nor that of a sibling's, though she'd once thought Lee and Neji to be like brothers to her.

No lover spent his nights with her.

Her friendships were all obviously one-sided, with her smiling and aiding them in all and any of their endeavors, but without any affection being directed towards her.

No… Tenten had never known love.

She backed up, her hand still covering her mouth.

She hated her face, her body, her life, her soul.

She had nothing, nobody, who cared.

Nothing to live for – Why was she still alive?

She wished for a million things, all of them unreachable.

Like the stars.

Unreachable.

An ache in her beating heart caused her hand to drop from her mouth to her chest. The towel fell from around her shoulders and she collapsed, naked, on the ground.

And, for the first time in her life, she gave up.

Tenten, who had spent her life giving false smiles and hoping beyond hope that a better day was coming for her, gave up. She gave up hoping for that day in which everything would be right for once. She gave up on herself. She gave up on ever being beautiful or eye-catching. She gave up on being a respected shinobi. She gave up on her dreams and her desires, including the desire for just one person to love her. Just one…

She gave up on him.

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It was unlike any feeling he'd felt before.

And he'd thought he'd felt everything.

The despair that consumed him now was so overwhelming that he dropped down to his knees, biting his lips to hold in the scream of pain.

Hyugas didn't show this level of emotion.

Scratch that – Neji didn't show this level of emotion.

EVER.

Not when he'd been branded with his caged bird seal. Not when his father had been murdered by his own family. Not when he'd been almost killed on multiple missions.

This feeling inside him…

He now knew true pain.

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When she made it to the training grounds that morning, she no longer wore the mask she'd lived with her whole life.

No smile, no silly wave of her hand, or false brightening of her features – she was empty.

Just like he'd always been.

Cold, emotionless, and empty.

His exotic eyes weren't quite so emotionless as they saw her without her disguise for the first time.

First she noticed the shock in his pealescent orbs, but then there was understanding, pain, and finally… anger.

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He'd never felt so completely angry before in his life. This day was turning out to be the most emotional day he'd ever had. First he'd felt pain and now he felt anger – blinding, irrational anger that bubbled to the surface and threatened to consume him.

"Who… Who did this to you?" He choked out, his voice unnecessarily harsh as he grabbed her by the shoulders.

He noticed the scrapes on her cheeks from a pair of hands that obviously wanted to ruin the beauty of that innocent face. He saw the apathy, the despair, and the complete lack of any feeling in her doe-like eyes and his heart ached again upon seeing that heartrending site.

She leaned into his rough embrace, almost unconsciously, but then seemed to realize her mistake when he stiffened and she leapt back, her eyes seeming almost more empty then they'd been only a second earlier.

"I…" Her voice was almost rougher then his, sounding hoarse and low as if she'd forgotten how to speak properly, "I apologize for my weakness."

Flabbergast, he opened his mouth to say something back – anything to get her to smile again – but was stopped as she retreated to her side of the field and began pulling weapons from thin air, obviously preparing herself to battle.

He couldn't bear to see her like this. Each jerk of her hand was mechanical and unfeeling, not even the cold metal of her arsenal brought a smile to her face anymore. He despaired, desperately wishing for some type of way to bring back the hopeful, bright girl he'd always cared so deeply for.

And then it hit him.

In less then a second, he was in front of her, his strange lavender orbs burning with a light he'd hidden from the rest of the world.

Only she would know this light in his eyes.

Only the girl who'd never given up would be rewarded with this rare glimpse at the real Neji.

Only for her – for Tenten – would he give up every ounce of who he was.

For her to be happy, he would give anything.

So right now, he gave her the one thing he'd been denying them both since the first day they'd met.

He gave her his love.

Shinobi weren't supposed to love, they both knew that. Neji, most of all, knew and lived by that sacred law.

But he would give up being a shinobi and a Hyuga and so much more if it meant making her happy. If it meant bringing her back from her strange depression.

A kiss.

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She hadn't been expecting him to care.

He _never _cared.

Okay, she was lying to herself – he did care. She knew he cared for her, but it had never been enough. All those little signs of his affection weren't enough to erase the strange doubt that plagued her mind. She just couldn't help but feel as if she didn't mean a thing to him, as if she was nothing more then a hindrance and a weakling.

So when she'd retreated to her side of the training field and began readying herself for the coming battle (which she knew he would win, but she would try despite this oppressive knowledge), she hadn't known what to expect when he'd suddenly appeared before her.

It seemed like a lifetime passed as her sluggish brain struggled to process what went on in front of her.

She could _feel _his lips capture hers. She could _feel _the hunger and the love that flowed like the sweet air of spring from his lips. She could _feel _his hands as they desperately grabbed her shoulders, pulling her to him roughly, as if trying to force her to respond. She felt all this, but none of it registered.

As her mind slowly processed each feeling, her eyes closed almost of their own accord and her hands traveled up to cling desperately to his jacket, as if he was the only thing holding keeping her alive at that moment (which she knew he was).

Finally, it clicked.

Neji was kissing her.

Hyuga Neji.

Kissing.

Her?

She didn't know if it was the cruelty of her own mind forcing her to dream about the one thing that had eluded her for so long, but she was beyond the point of caring.

She'd never tasted love before.

Never felt it.

Never known it could feel so… intoxicating.

Her hands moved from his jacket to fist in his long hair, pulling him even closer.

He moaned into her mouth, eliciting a delicious shiver to run down her spine.

His lips warm against hers felt so right. Their bodies pressed intimately together created the perfect cocoon of love.

So perfect.

Tenten was overwhelmed.

Neji broke away.

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A hunger unlike any he'd ever known had taken over the minute his chapped lips had pressed against her own. Years of suppressed raging hormones screamed their happiness at being released and set about to rampaging his body, taking over every corner of his conscience and turning him instantly into a primal creature, lustful and hungry.

He'd felt a twinge of worry when he felt her lips not react to his own, but just as he'd been about to pull away she'd responded and when she did he'd nearly lost himself in the flood of desire.

Who knew the stoic Hyuga Neji had so many hormones?

He certainly didn't.

_I suppose this is what happens when you have to train with a gorgeous woman everyday and have to pretend you're not attracted to her. _He thought, a moan ripping its way out of his throat at her eager response.

The kiss continued on for not nearly as long as he would've liked before he managed to tear himself away, his Hyuga manners once again resuming control of his body.

He stared down at her, awaiting her reaction.

Would she hate him for this infraction or, as her kissing had demonstrated, would she like him to try again?

Hazelnut eyes slowly revealed themselves as her long lashes and translucent lids slid back.

He caught his breath…

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Hope was a beautiful emotion.

Tenten had lived her entire life off of the hope that she'd be good enough someday to merit the attention of a certain person.

This morning she'd given up hope.

That emotion which had driven her to achieve everything which she had achieved – the status of Jounin, her nickname as Konoha's Weapon's Mistress, as well as her place as Neji's only partner – now shone so brightly from her once again that it was almost blinding.

She opened her eyes as a smile worked its way across her face, erasing all signs of the depression which had manifested itself in her heavy heart only hours ago.

And he, upon seeing her smile, drew her to him in relief, his stoic features revealing only a bit of the strong emotion behind this action.

"I love you Tenten." He whispered into her hair, her buns coming undone as he nuzzled her and hugged her tightly.

She pulled back, her eyes searching hungrily for some sign that this was truth and not some lie to make her feel better.

In an instant she saw the truth, gleaming from his eyes. Those pale-lavender eyes which hardly ever betrayed an ounce of what lay beneath his cold exterior revealed the truth in his words.

For a second, she saw herself as he saw her and she was caught up in the wonder of it all. She was beautiful – perfect in her many imperfections. Her tomboyish clothes complimented his own practical and adventurous spirit. Her buns weren't ugly or childish, but endearing and a sign of innocence, just as her eyes weren't plain but bright and shining. She saw her own reflection in his gorgeous eyes and almost cried from the beauty of that hopeful girl; that girl who never gave up and who inspired him to keep going even when he was facing the impossible.

She tentatively wrapped her own arms around him, still wondering at her luck.

"I love you too Neji."

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**Um… so I don't actually like this oneshot that much. **

**I just love Tenten as a character because I always feel a lot like her and I was feeling pretty down about myself the other day so I started writing about it from Tenten's pov.**

**And then it kinda sorta spread. **

**Honestly, I don't expect this story to be a bit hit, but if you want to review I'd be happy for it.**

**k, thanks for reading. Hope it wasn't too depressing…**

**(ps. Oh yeah! I wanted to dedicate this to my own "Neji" because he makes me feel like I'm beautiful and precious even when I feel worthless. So yeah for all the Neji's out there!)**


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